


Unexpected

by themadmage



Series: themadmage's Harry Potter one-shots and standalones [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Baby Harry Potter, F/M, Gen, Hopeful Ending, One Shot, Pre-Hogwarts, Pregnancy, Trans Harry Potter, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, non-graphic birth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 18:36:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17309780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themadmage/pseuds/themadmage
Summary: One-shot. Based on a headcanon I have that in the Wizarding World prenatal care spells are focused on reading the child's magic, and how that would apply to a transgender child.More details on the transphobia tag can be found in the endnotes, for anyone concerned. It spoils a fair bit of the story, since this is a short piece, but I don't want anyone caught off guard or feeling like they have to disregard this story because they don't know what it will be like.





	Unexpected

Becoming pregnant in the middle of a war was unexpected. Unplanned. But it was a wonderful surprise, really. The world needed something happy right now.

When Lily told James they were expecting, he cried and looked at her like she'd hung the moon. Not that he didn't always look at her that way. When they told Sirius, and asked him to be the child's godfather, he cheered. He whooped, and shouted, and immediately bought half of Flourish and Blotts' Babies and Parenting section.

Andromeda Tonks came to their house to check up on Lily and the baby regularly, as was standard for the members of the Order. Even with a baby coming, it was wartime and St. Mungo's wasn't safe.

At nineteen weeks, Andy happily told them they were expecting a boy. It took James and Lily three weeks to agree on the name Harry. Sirius was the one to suggest giving him James as his middle name, and both of the parents agreed if only not to have to come up with another name on their own. 

 

Lily delivered two weeks before her due date, on July 31st. Andromeda had kicked James out of the room three hours into her labor, and he would never stop being bitter that Sirius had been allowed to stay. 

"Sirius stayed calm," Andromeda told him in a no-nonsense tone of voice. "Lily doesn't need you wearing a hole in the floor or fainting while she's doing all the work."

James was allowed to come back in when Lily started pushing, but only after swearing that he would keep his head on straight. When Harry James Potter was finally born, Lily was sweaty and disheveled and James would swear it was the most beautiful he'd ever seen her. Andromeda placed their baby boy in Lily's open arms, declaring him perfectly healthy. 

Lily cooed at the child, gently brushing his tiny fingers and toes, and then furrowed her brow and looked up at the others in the room.

"I thought we were having a boy... Did the spell go wrong?"

"The prenatal spells never lie," Andromeda told her. "You do have a boy."

"But-"

James and Sirius hadn't gotten a close enough look yet at Harry to understand why Lily was confused, but Andromeda had. "The prenatal spells used read the child's magic, Lily. Harry's magic knows he's a boy, even if his body doesn't."

"Oh," Sirius and James said in unison.

"This was unexpected, but there are medical treatments he'll be able to have in order to feel more at ease in his body. By the time he needs them, he'll be old enough to help you decide what he wants. For now, don't worry too much about it. You have a healthy baby boy who just so happens to look a little different than other boys."

It took about two weeks and a book Sirius brought on gender identity in the wizarding world before Lily understood that her son was transgender and what that would look like for him, but she loved Harry fiercely through it all. His gender and his body didn't make a difference - he was hers.

 

On Halloween night of 1981 the James and Lily Potter died, Voldemort fell, and Harry was declared the Boy-Who-Lived. Sirius went after Peter, who'd betrayed them, and went to prison in his place. Harry was left on the doorstep of Vernon and Petunia Dursley's aggressively normal house with the milk bottles and a letter. 

The first time Petunia changed Harry's diaper, she shrieked. She left Harry naked on the changing table and went to get the letter, reading it over again, but just as she remembered, it said 'son' and 'Harry'. 

"She's clearly not a boy," Petunia told her husband, Harry still waiting for her to finish cleaning him up. "That world that took my sister is even more unnatural than I thought."

It took them nearly a month to re-name Harry, calling him only 'the girl', because Petunia didn't _want_ to name her sister's freak of a daughter. Finally, they decided to call him Rose. It wouldn't do for the child to become even more freakish by being called a boy's name, or no name at all.

 

Rose Potter was an unhappy child. She lived with her Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and their son Dudley in their cupboard under the stairs. The Dursleys never  _starved_ her, but she was never allowed to eat as much as she wanted. 

Rose also wore her very large cousin's hand-me-downs. His ratty T-shirts and sweatshirts were long enough on her slight frame to be worn as a dress, if Petunia belted them around the waist. Her shoes were old pairs of Petunia's that she'd found in the attic. Her messy black hair was always cut long, with bangs to hide the scar on her forehead, even though Rose had said many times she'd prefer it short.

Petunia always told her short hair was too boyish, even though there was a girl in Rose's class who had  _her_ hair short. She called it a pixie cut, but the Dursleys had sputtered angrily when Rose had told them that, so she didn't bring it up again. 

 

A letter on oddly heavy paper came through the slot in the door one day when Rose was sent to collect the mail. On one side was a wax seal with a large letter H, and on the other it said  _Mr. Harry J. Potter, Cupboard Under the Stairs, 4 Privet Drive_.Rose didn't know who 'Harry' was, though privately she liked the name. It was odd that the letter was addressed to her cupboard, though, and she was the only Potter in this house. She tried to keep the letter, but Dudley noticed and called her out. It started a huge fight, and Rose spent the rest of the day locked away.

The letters kept coming, though, and chased the Dursleys out of their house and across the countryside. It was midnight on Rose's birthday, and she was with the Dursleys in a small shack on the sea. It was the closest thing to a holiday Rose had ever had, and it was terrible.

Just then, the door rattled fiercely. It rattled several times before breaking in to reveal an incredibly large man requesting tea as if this were all normal.  _Normal_ was something Rose was painfully familiar with at the Dursleys. 

The giant man's eyes landed first on Dudley, and then on Rose. He took in her green eyes and black hair, and smiled broadly. "An' there's Harry!"

"Sorry?" Rose replied, confused.

"Last time I saw yeh, yeh was jus' a baby!"

Rose and the giant man, who eventually introduced himself as Hagrid, then had a very confusing conversation which the Dursleys angrily interrupted several times. By the end of it, Rose had managed to work out that she had magic, and she would be going to a special school to study it, and that her parents had also been magical, and that they had  _not_ died in a car crash like the Dursleys had told her but had been murdered by an evil wizard who had died trying to kill her. Throughout this whole conversation, Hagrid called her Harry. Rose still hadn't managed to ask why, though she liked it just as much as when she'd seen it on that first letter.

 

It wasn't until Hagrid whisked her away in a magically propelled boat that Rose managed to ask about the name issue. "Hagrid, why do you keep calling me Harry?"

"Well, it's your name, innit?"

"My name is Rose."

Hagrid looked at her funny. "Tha's not wha' yer parents named yeh. They called you 'Arry. Why, everyone in teh Wizardin' World knows your name - Harry James Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived."

"But I'm a girl."

Hagrid, who was very familiar with the stories of the Boy-Who-Lived, and who had met Harry when he was a baby, and who was not  _extremely_ knowledgeable on baby things but was quite certain Harry's parents wouldn't have mistaken a girl for a boy was now as confused as the child he was sharing a boat with. Finally, he asked, "Do yeh feel like a girl?"

Rose thought for a bit. She didn't know what feeling like a girl was supposed to feel like. She'd always felt like herself, and nothing else. She'd never exactly liked the way her long hair and makeshift dressed looked, but she'd thought that was because her hair was messy and her dresses were actually Dudley's shirts. She tried picturing herself in a  _new_ dress, like her classmates wore. It was difficult, since she'd never had anything like that, but she didn't think she liked the image any better. And the name Rose had never been exactly comfortable, though she'd never been able to place why. "Well, maybe not exactly, but- well- I've got- I  _look_ like a girl. You know. Everywhere.

Hagrid looked very uncomfortable. "Well, tha' happens sometimes, I think. But yer parents knew yeh were a boy. Yer aunt 'n' uncle shoulda too, Dumbledore left 'em a letter tellin' 'em who yeh were."

 

Quite awhile later, Harry asked again, "My parents named me Harry James?"

"Yeh, tha' they did."

"It happens sometimes? Boys, who look like girls? Are there books on it?"

"Sure there are. We can get yeh one in Diagon Alley wit' yer school stuff, if yeh wan'."

"And maybe a haircut?"

"Sure thing."

"The Dursleys won't like it."

"Teh Dursleys can go hang."

"It's unexpected." After another moment, Harry said, " I like the name Harry. If my parents knew I was Harry James Potter, then that's who I want to be."

**Author's Note:**

> The descriptions of Harry's life with the Dursley's are taken almost word from word from various parts of J. K. Rowling's first book, until it comes to Harry's gender and presentation. 
> 
> Lily is confused at first by her son's body, but not hateful in any way. The real transphobia comes in with the Dursleys, who see it as unnatural. They re-name Harry and raise him as a girl, and raise him just as poorly as in canon but with another thing to hate him for. A portion of the story from Harry's POV uses the wrong name and pronouns, because he doesn't know the circumstances that forced him into being called a girl or that he has the option of being anything else. Harry non-explicitly brings up his own genitals while talking to Hagrid.


End file.
